Family
by outerelf
Summary: It was an odd revelation to be hearing now. Just so long as it left Prime crashed in the doorway it was fine however.


_He was sick. Completely and totally sick. The mech stumbled towards the window, his energon processor heaving horribly as he attempted to make it before he covered the floor with his half-processed energon. _

_Even if it would make no difference in the end. The entire floor was covered with unconscious to half-conscious mechs, each in a state of being sick. He was the last one standing. _

_Fresh, pure air hit his face as he made it to the second story window to throw up. Distantly he could hear swearing from below him. He ignored it as his processor heaved again, once again spraying the unlucky individuals below him with the rejected material. _

_There was a scrambling noise, and the mech could see a femme scrambling up after him, swearing loudly and clearly. "I'm going to rip out you pleasure unit and stuff it up your aft you-" _

_The mech valiantly attempted to sidestep the hand, but even that movement made him loose his processor once more. Right in the face of the climbing femme. With a screech of pure rage she grabbed him by the arm and they both fell. _

The red and white Lamborghini woke up with a start as the remembrance of the pain came flooding back to him. He stared up at the ceiling for a few moments, before rolling onto his side as he glanced around the tiny cell that was all his. All his. That was good, for he completely doubted anyone would want to face him when he woke up after remembering his one lover that he had almost proposed too. Of course he would have to wait too long, and the swearing coming down the hallway reminded him of her-

He sat up, optics distantly curious as to who it was. It wasn't a voice he recognized, which meant that it was probably another prisoner.

The expressionless jailer appeared, dragging along a fire truck. The Lamborghini watched incuriously, optics tracking them as they got closer to his cell. At last the jailer stopped in front, and opened the door to shove the fire truck in.

"Here, why don't you two keep yourselves company?"

The Lamborghini shifted so that his back was against the wall, staring at the fire truck. The fire truck glared after the jailer, looking up and down the bars. At last he looked back. His face was a little dented, and he was still leaking energon sluggishly, but seemed perfectly fine otherwise. "So- Ah'm Inferno. Who're you?"

"Red Alert."

The monotone reply didn't seem to discourage the fire truck at all. "Good to meet you, though I'd of liked better circumstances."

Red Alert shrugged, gaze drifting back out to the jailer. The jailer ignored them. He waited for a long few moments, watching the jailer intently, before shifting his gaze back to the wall, just as the jailer looked up. The jailer paused, as a message obviously came through on the comm. link. Then, without a word, the mech left.

"So….Any chance of getting out of here any time soon?"

"Yeah, there's an entire patrol lost in the mountains. They told me if I didn't report back within two orns, they'd send out a rescue party. What're you doing here? Part of the lost patrol?"

"No. The 'lost' patrol is in another section of the prison where we can't communicate."

Infernos optics shuttered. "How do you know?" He paused, and added on another question. "How long have you been here if you weren't part of the patrol?"

"I was captured along with the patrol after traveling with them a short distance to fix one of my broken cameras on the outside perimeter."

Inferno made a slight noise as the sound of shooting drifted down the hallway. "Oh, it looks like they finally noticed." Red Alert muttered sarcastically, even as he shifted into a slightly more comfortable position.

"Who?"

The sound of a door slamming open answered him as two sets of optics fixated on Red Alert. Inferno gaped at the large, energon covered twins. "There you are! I told you he was captured Sunny!"

'Sunny' muttered bane-fully at his twins nudging. "Hey, we're here to take you back."

Red Alert stood up, as Sunstreaker shot out the controls, disabling the lock. "Do you have a weapon?"

The red mech grinned, holding up a shoulder rocket launcher. "Even better."

Red Alert took it, before turning back to Inferno, just emerging from his cell. "We'll need a weapon for him."

Inferno shook his head. "Nah, my cannon will work just fine, just let me grab my part they took out."

He scooped it up from where the jailer had left it carelessly on the table, smirking wildly. Red Alert glanced over at him, and nodded, his own weapon snapping into place loudly. "Let's find your lost patrol and get out of here. For I highly doubt that you two brought backup."

* * *

Inferno knocked on the door, wondering why he had even bothered. Red Alert probably wasn't in his room, and if he was, he defiantly wasn't going to answer him-

A hand landed on his shoulder. "Inferno? What are you doing down these corridors?"

Inferno nearly yelped in surprise but managed to strangle down the rather unmanly noise to a strangled hello. After a few vorns of knowing Red Alert, he had finally realized what an unusual meeting he had with the mech.

Not that being captured and meeting the love of your life was strange enough.

"I just wanted to ask about Side-"

There was the sound of cubes crashing together, and voices rising drunkenly. Red Alert hovered on the edge of just letting Prowl deal with it, before at last he made a gesture to stay there, and pattered off in the direction.

There was a horrible wail that was distantly recognizable as a traditional drinking song, before they cracked, vocalizers unable to go that high. After a few moments, the song snapped off with an abruptness that said the officers had arrived to put them out of their misery.

Inferno leaned against the wall and tried not to fidget as a minute passed. Then, Red Alert came back, looking absolutely panicked. "Slag, slag, slag."

"What's the matter?"

"It's my creation day tomorrow." Red Alert hissed, looking around. "That means the twins are going to be after me."

Inferno was about to dispute that idea, when he actually stopped himself to think about it. Every single one of Red Alerts creation days had been him barricaded in his room, refusing to let anyone in. Including Inferno. "What do they do?"

Red Alert shot him a pained look, "Party."

Inferno made a slight noise. _Lets see, I bet if I spread it across the Ark, a party will be rigged up fast enough. Yes, that would be a good idea indeed, though I'm going have to scramble for a present._

Red Alert shook his head, his CPU calming down slowly. "You came to see me for something?"

"Ummm-" Inferno said blankly, his question wiped from his CPU over the excitement of the already being mapped out party. "I forgot."

Red Alert shook his head. "You forgot. Well, if you remember it, you'll know where to find me."

Inferno nodded, before walking off, a slow goofy smile spreading as he contemplated his best route to go through with the party.

0o0o0o0o0o0

Red Alert sidled out of his room after the light, uneasy recharge. At every unusual noise during the past cycle he had woken up, spark pounding. Needless to say, it was not conductive to spending a good night.

Inferno came strolling down the hallway, whistling cheerfully. "Good afternoon Red."

"Good after-" He stopped. Dead. "Afternoon?"

"Yeah, ya slept through nearly the entire day." Inferno said equably, face straight. Red Alert searched Inferno for all of the little hidden ticks that were there when he was lying. There were no ticks or twitches.

"Slag. I had so much to do today!" Red Alert nearly wailed, panicking slightly. "Gotta go!"

Red Alert fled in a different direction. The hologram of Inferno faded as Hound spoke into the comm. link, "Got him."

"He believed you?" Inferno asked guiltily. It was a low trick to be playing, but one that the Ark had immediately seized upon. They all relished the idea of surprising the spark out of Red Alert, and Inferno found himself caught up in the riptide. "Is Sideswipe and Sunstreaker in place?"

"Yep, their in the control room." Ratchet reported. Nobody was quiet sure why Ratchet had joined in. "Prowl is also in place."

Infernos optics switched over to Jazz, who smirked. "How did you convince him?"

"I simply pointed out that managing to surprise the paranoid security director would be a real challenge. And it was one that he couldn't exactly resist."

"Why not?" Inferno asked cautiously, wondering if he really wanted to know the answer.

"Because the two are bickering over what falls into each others lines of duty. Red Alert has an advantage with the fact tat he knows where just about everyone and their backgrounds complete with blackmail files stored away. Prowler has got me, and the fact that he can logically figure out who did what just by hearing a few testimonies. Both want the other not to challenge the decisions they each make."

Prowls voice interrupted coldly, "Jazz that is not the reason. Stop spreading tales."

Jazz mouthed 'I told you so' at Inferno. Both jumped as Prowl snapped, "Enough Jazz!"

Jazz slumped as Sideswipe reported, "Red Alert is coming your way Prowl. He has the look of someone about to go on a rampage. I think he just checked his internal chronometer, and figured out that we lied to him."

Inferno shrank in his seat. Prowl nodded, "Alright, I'll call back when Red Alert is through with me. Jazz, make sure that the setting up is going smoothly."

Jazz grinned, standing up. "I'll go check now Prowler."

He clicked off. Inferno had to admit that this would be a night to remember.

0o0o0o0o0o0

Red Alert now had solid proof that everyone was out to get him. Everyone. First it had been Mirage trying to sneak up behind him invisible, and then the twins weren't pursuing him like they did all of the other creation days-

Inferno appeared. Red Alert eyed him warily. He still had no idea how Inferno had managed to lie to him earlier, throwing his entire day off balance. Or how the twins had managed to somehow stay within the control room. He could've sworn that they would need to leave sometime during the day-

Inferno grinned widely as he saw Red Alert. "Prime wants ya."

Red Alert glared suspiciously. "Why didn't he call me on the comm. link then?"

_Because we haven't let him onto the party either _Inferno thought, but he said wheedling, "Ya know how Prime is. Now come on Red, it'll be just a few moments, I promise."

Red Alert reluctantly followed Inferno. As they approached the room, he slowed. The room was for parties-

In vain he attempted to make a break for it, but Inferno anticipated the movement. Without saying anything he twisted Red Alert around and propelled him into the room, as Sideswipe and Sunstreaker broke into the human birthday song.

"Happy Creation Day to you!"

The rest of the Ark began to wheel out an energon cake-

"Happy Creation day to you!"

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker smirked at each other as Red Alert slumped in mock despair. They had finally gotten one up on him. "Happy creation day to our creator!"

The cake tipped onto the floor unnoticed.

"Happy creation day to you!"

There was a moment of silence before the cafeteria turned into complete and utter bedlam over the information.

Inferno rocked back onto his heels as he stared at the three mechs, stunned by the sudden revelation. He had always wondered what was with the odd looks they had been giving him. Now that he knew-

Blaster managed to calm down the Arks crew before asking the first, logical question. "Who's your bonded?"

"I'm not bonded."

"Then why-"

"We were both lovers, and she eventually found someone else that she bonded with. I gained custody of the sparklings."

"Ah." There was a moment of silence. "When did you two meet?"

Red Alert hesitated over the answer. "In the hospital. I believe she had tossed me out of a second story window. At least, everyone who was watching us fall said she had."

Infernos opinion of whoever this was rapidly began to change. Before he had guessed that she would've been a quiet type. Tossing a mech out the second story window was not what most femmes would do however.

Maybe.

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker nodded, before pointing out to the high grade. "Let's party!"

Jazz and Blaster started up the music, as high grade energon began making its rounds. Optimus Prime entered in time to see Red Alert break down enough to actually accept a cube. "What's going on here?"

Prowl answered, "Creation Day party for Red Alert."

Prime made a slight noise. A cube was handed off to him, and unthinkingly he drank out of it. The unusual high grade made him pause. "It's the twins' special brew." Prowl explained. "They made it for the party."

"I didn't even know they liked Red Alert."

"They're his creations." Prowl said calmly.

Prime froze, back ramrod straight. "C-creations?"

"Yes, I had guessed that they were related, though this was a bit of a surprise."

"How come?"

"Because I never knew my brother had taken on a lover."

The party didn't pause for a second as Prime crashed in the doorway.

* * *

_A/n: Before you ask, no I wasn't doped up, and yes, Prowl did say that. I now have a new theory. XP _


End file.
